Hi Jason
Have just returned from our 7th visit and about to book our 8th visit...love it there.
We've done a mixture of island & liveaboards and for some of the best diving we now stick to liveaboards.
Last year and this year we've used to same company and our next vist will be with them again :
Maldive Scuba Tours; they have over 15 yrs experience in the Maldives and last year we were lucky to be joined by one if the owners Rob and his passion was clear to see.
Have a look on their website and look back at trip reports and guest comments; a large chunk of their bookings are repeat guests; and I thinks that tells you alot.
They run 7 or 12 day trips; we do the 12 day trips as the boats go to atolls further away. This years trip was just awsome; day 1 we had mantas on all dives and spent 2.5 hours snorkelling with 4 whale sharks; the 1st one was 8m and just spent her time coming towards you with her mouth open and gulping...boy she had one large mouth (lol) and more mantas that I could count....awsome!
They have 2 boats: Seaqueen & Sea Spirit; we've been on both and for us SQ wins; Lisa & Dave have been there for 4 years and really do know their stuff and went out of their way to ensure guests were happy plus Dave likes to get the guitar out which goes well with a cold beer/wine.
Crew - great; happy to help as and when but not in your face
Food - chef; worth his weight in gold! Fantastic. Fresh catch of the day, mean green curry, don't eat fish so I always had a nice steak or chicken. And always something sweet to eat following the last dive of the day; chocolate cake that melts in the mouth.
Boat - very clean and comfortable. 6 cabins;max 12 divers. Not big flash boats...but in my opnion the best operator/liveboard. If you look on some UK forums you will see they have a very good reputation and over the years have built a strong guest loyalty standard.
Other stuff - nitrox available, smbs to be used on every dive, boats don't travel at night, 3 dives a day unless also doing night dive, water temp sept/oct 29 - 31.
Male really is bursting with people and rather hetic; if you wanted a hotel b4 you went onto a liveaboard then you could look at staying on: airport hotel: good food, beer or two, pool to chill at or you could do an island near Male: Bandos.
Hope my 'wittering on' may have been of use.
Regards
Vicky
